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Former US treasury secretary Larry Summers is exiting the board at the artificial intelligence firm, just days after a collection of digital correspondence between him and deceased financier Jeffrey Epstein became public.

Summers commented in an announcement that he was "grateful for the opportunity to have participated, enthusiastic about the potential of the enterprise, and look forward observing their progress".

The former Harvard president, who previously led the Ivy League institution, announced on earlier this week that he would be scaling back from public roles due to his connections with Jeffrey Epstein.

Message Exchange

The newly public communications showed that the official exchanged messages with Jeffrey Epstein until the 24 hours preceding the financier's 2019 detention for alleged trafficking of young people.

In another announcement, the AI firm stated it accepted his choice to resign.

"We value his numerous inputs and the insight he provided to the Board," OpenAI stated.

Legislative Background

This development follows after the entire Congress of the US legislature agreed on recently to endorse a legislation that would require the federal prosecutors to make public its documents on the case.

The bill will then proceed to the administration of the White House for signature. Trump has said he plans to sign the measure, after changing his position on the subject following objections from his base.

Correspondence Findings

A collection of Epstein-connected correspondence disclosed by the Congressional committee last week mentioned numerous high-profile figures in the financier's past associates, without suggesting any illegal behavior by those people.

The messages revealed that the economist and Jeffrey Epstein regularly had dinners together, with the billionaire often attempting to connect the academic to prominent international personalities.

Personal Response

After the correspondence were made available with the general audience, the former official said he took "total ownership for my ill-advised decision to continue communicating with Mr Epstein".

He further stated that he wanted "to reestablish trust and fix bonds with the persons nearest to me".

Professional History

Summers held high-level positions under Democratic administrations; functioning as Treasury chief under President Clinton, and as head of the National Economic Council under the former leader.

He led the institution from the early 2000s and is still a academic there. When declaring his departure from public commitments recently on Monday, he stated he would maintain his teaching commitments.

Additional Consequences

Following Summers' statement on earlier this week, the Washington think tank, a left-leaning think tank in DC where he was a senior fellow, verified that the economist was not associated with the organization.

The former official became part of the directorate of the AI company, which creates ChatGPT, in last year - following a failed attempt to remove its top executive Sam Altman.